'Black Panther' Is Now The 10th Highest Grossing Film Of All Time

Today, Black Panther adds another box office record to its already-impressive stack of achievements. Topping $1.276 billion in global box office receipts, the film became the 10th-highest grossing movie of all time. The previous #10 film was Frozen.

Official poster for Marvel's "Black Panther"

Source: Marvel Studios

As Black Panther approaches the end of its run, it's amazing to consider it probably still has another $30-40 million in worldwide ticket sales awaiting in the coming weeks. That will be good enough to push the film past $1.3 billion, making it one of the few solo superhero movies to play in Avengers territory.

Being an all-time top 10 picture is a phenomenal achievement for a solo superhero movie. Few have ever passed $1 billion, with only The Dark Knight, The Dark Knight Rises, Iron Man 3, and Captain America: Civil War managing ten-digit performances.

Civil War was, of course, more of a team-up movie and benefited greatly from the sense it was a sort-of Avengers film. And of course, Iron Man 3 was the first Marvel follow-up to 2012's Avengers and starred the most popular superhero of the MCU at the time. Black Panther topped all of those films, while opening in February and riding no coattails or playing in the team-up sandbox.

Black Panther will be the second film in the all-time top 10 directed by a person of color. James Wan's Furious 7 was the first movie from a director of color to enter the top 10. Hopefully, we'll see a lot more of that happening in the years to come, assuming Hollywood is finally learning the lesson that diversity is necessary for equality and is good for business as well.

If the top-10 performance isn't enough reason to brag this week, Black Panther is just days away from another cause for celebration. By the close of business next week, it will top Titanic's domestic box office and will become the third-highest grossing movie in North American history.

Already, Black Panther's domestic tally makes it the highest-grossing superhero movie in North American history. It's also the first time any solo superhero movie has topped $600 million domestically -- and only the second superhero movie of any type to do so, alongside The Avengers. It's final total should lift it beyond $670 million stateside, a figure that will be tough for even the upcoming Avengers: Infinity War to surpass.

Chadwick Boseman stars in Marvel's "Black Panther"

Source: Marvel Studios

Disney's family of studios now own seven of the top 11 spots on the all-time highest grossing domestic box office list. All told, Disney-Marvel-Lucasfilm-Pixar account for ten of the top 14 highest grossing domestic releases in history - one for Pixar, one for Walt Disney, three for Marvel Studios, and five for Lucasfilm. Two of Lucasfilm's top-14 releases preceded Disney's ownership of the studio responsible for the Star Wars series.

Be ready for plenty more updates on Black Panther in the coming days and weeks, as it approaches and passes new theatrical milestones. And after that, be prepared for plenty of eye-popping reports about the film's home entertainment release, where it is sure to set some records and rack up big sales figures again.